I worked on that F-15 with the tail number 74-105. (That is an A model btw)
I also have some high quality pictures of F-15's based at King Salmon and Galena AB's intercepting Soviet bombers during the mid 80's. Soviet bombers flying close to Alaska was a fairly common occurence that required F-15's (and F-4E Phantoms prior to that) to be launched to intercept them.
I think I have related this story before.
One time when one of our alert birds at Galena was down for extended maintenance, we put another bird on alert at Elmendorf until the one at Galena was cleared to fly again. While sitting in the alert shack (which was easy duty, you watched tv, read, slept or whatever) the pilot got a series of phone calls. After the first one he told the crew chief and I to be ready. When we asked....Ready for what? His reply was, just be ready. About 30 minutes or so after the first phone call, the claxon in the alert cell went off. Down the fire poles we went. As I franticly pulled safety gear off the missiles, armed the warheads and armed the gun, the pilot raced up the boarding ladder, reached into the cockpit and started the process to start the #2 engine. By the time he was actually sitting in the seat, the #2 engine was already running and he was starting the #1 engine. As I ran past the starboard main gear I kicked out the front chock. Before I was finished arming the missiles on the port side of the plane, the crew chief was screaming at me to finish and to pull the chocks on the port main gear.
As soon as I finished arming the missiles, I kicked out the front chock on the port gear and the crew chief signaled the pilot to throttle up. I ran out from under the wing and ducked with my back to the plane. The jet blast still darn near blew me off my feet. As soon as the jet blast quit hitting me I turned to watch the F-15 as it taxied to the runway. The pilot lit up his afterburners as he turned onto the runway with his canopy still closing.
We had 5 minutes to get that plane off the ground from a cold start. The crew chief called his superior on the radio as the F-15's gear left the ground and asked for a stop-time. His superior said we got that plane airborne in just over 3 minutes. That was the only time I got to participate in a live scramble. Incidentally, this wasn't just a practice run, that F-15 we launched intercepted a Bear bomber off the coast of Alaska along with his wingman that launched from Galena.
All in all it was a pretty neat experience. The only downside to it was I had to go back to work on the flight line after the launch
